Tenants feared 'ignorant psychotic'

Sunday 21 July 2002 23:00 BST

Property tycoon Nicholas van Hoogstraten is described by tenants, MPs, council leaders and lawyers as an anti-Semitic, manipulative and threatening man would who hit back at anyone who dared take him on.

Stories of him throwing people on to the street, ripping the roofs off tenants' homes and threatening others with violence are commonplace.

But many who know him, or who have been his victims, are still too scared to speak about their experiences of the man branded an "ignorant psychotic" by one MP.

Today's conviction will be welcomed by those who were his tenants at notorious addresses such as crumbling Portland Gate in Hove, described as looking like a scene from war-torn Beirut and where residents' pleas for repair work was repeatedly blocked.

One woman whose family was targeted by van Hoogstraten, but who would not be named for fear of violent retribution, said: "I can't speak about him because I know what he does. I know what he is capable of. I know the way he works and I know the terrible things he does."

And a Kensington-based solicitor who helped tenants in London fight van Hoogstraten for the right to live in their flats in the 1980s said: "There is something evil about the man that defies analysis. He radiates evil.

"I am completely petrified by him and will not be named. He is a rich man who can afford to have people shot, whether in prison or not."

The solicitor was one of several in London who launched their own campaign to persuade council bosses to order the compulsory purchase of properties owned by van Hoogstraten.

He dealt with a group of tenants in Kensington who suffered intimidation from van Hoogstraten in a bid to get rid of them.The solicitor said: "He would turn off the water or the heating to get rid of people.

"I remember one West African girl who was literally thrown out on to the street. We managed to get an injunction against van Hoogstraten but he ignored it. We took him to court but he sent one of his lieutenants. Finally van Hoogstraten came to court and said he would let the girl back in but of course she was far too scared to go near the place ever again.

"Shortly after that our offices were trashed. The computer screens were all kicked in but nothing was taken. We couldn't pin it on van Hoogstraten but I remain convinced it was him."

Hove MP Ivor Caplin has spent much of his time since gaining his seat dealing with the plight of tenants of van Hoogstraten.

Among his early campaigns was to fight for the compulsory purchase of Portland Gate, at the time one of the most well known parts of van Hoogstraten's vast property portfolio.

"He was a man who made no secret of his anti-Semitic approach in the early days," Mr Caplin said.

"The way he treated people in Portland Gate was disgraceful. On the other side, he owns three hotels in Hove and has put a lot of money into them to make them work.

"Tenants of van Hoogstraten always felt he was trying to get them out, to dump on them. If they complained there was always a labyrinth of organisations to get through before they got help."

Councillor Pat Murphy helped Mr Caplin fight the legal battle over Portland Gate when the Labour administration won power in the then Hove Borough Council.

He said: "The dispute at Portland Gate was over maintenance. It was known as a chest of drawers company, where if you opened one draw there was always another.

"It was an appalling place which was literally falling down. At the time there was an editorial in the local paper which asked readers to tell the difference between Portland Gate and a building in the civil war in Beirut. It was very hard.

"Nicholas van Hoogstraten was known to be anti-Semitic and at least one of the leaseholders at Portland Gate was Jewish. I am sure it was something to do with that, as much as to say he was cocking a snoot at anyone who did not like what he was doing."

Brighton Kemptown MP Des Turner joined protesters in another well documented case against van Hoogstraten in which a footpath that cut across his estate near Uckfield, East Sussex, was blocked with barbed wire, old fridges and a barn.

Today the path, close to van Hoogstraten's half-built palatial mansion at Framfield, remains blocked to ramblers, labelled "scum" and the "great unwashed" by the property tycoon.

Mr Turner said: "My impression of the man is that he is an ignorant psychotic, a really appalling character. He makes Britain's other worst landlord Peter Rackman seem pretty civilised. Tenants have been threatened by him. Indeed anyone who criticised him was threatened, or worse. Everyone is better off without him."

Mike Simpson, chairman of the Southern Private Landlords Association, got to know van Hoogstraten after meeting him at housing auctions in the Hove area.

He said: "Let's make this clear - he is a very nasty man. Anyone who did anything against him should not stay in Brighton. If you do a deal with him he will honour it. If people are reasonable he will be too.

"But if people cross him then he takes the law into his own hands. I would say to someone never, ever, do business with him or borrow money from him.

"That's all Mohammed Raja did. I knew him very well. He was not a good landlord and he used to pile them in and did not maintain his properties very well but he was not a nasty man and he did not deserve to die.

"It's common knowledge what van Hoogstraten is like around here. If tenants go against him then they know all about it. I have seen properties with no roofs and the tenant still living there. He will stand up and be counted but the degree to which he does so is wrong."